I don't know about a 2 3/4" but Great Planes has this 2.5" beauty at $23.95 (though I got mine for $17.95)...and you use this Dave Brown prop adapter. The screw that comes with the spinner is a 10-32 as is the thread of the adapter (8 X1.00mm prop shaft, 10-32 spinner bolt thread), you just need to use a shorter 10-32 spinner screw.

And... It fits an APC 18-10 perfectly no cutting, no filing...(haven't tried an 18-12)

Images

The Maxx Products (MPI) 2 3/4" is another good choice, at about the same price ( $20-$25). No cutting is necessary for the 18" props. It will need a 8mm adaptor for the Hyperion motor. I beleive that Quitefly R/C carrys what you need.

I am taking leave of the Samson for awhile until I feel like looking at it again. Exceedingly poor design of the landing gear box.

One gear broke off on a somewhat less than graceful landing. The landing gear plate, that has lightening holes in it for a reason that escapes me, broke in half with all 3 blind nuts still attached to the right gear. There was no bending of the landing gear plate so how hard could the impact have been to actually break the gear box in half. There was no damage to the AC other than the puncture to the wing skin caused by the gear fairing. Not even the prop broke. I really feel that the design should have at least allowed the gear to bend before tearing itself free from the airplane.I will eventually get around to redesigning it. If I can find a camera I will post some pics later.

Good chance that this will be my last Hyperion model as time and money are too short to waste on ill designed product. Sorry Nippon Dave but while I still claim that you have a model that presents beautifully I have to say that the 18 months and 4 peoples time spent engineering this model were largely wasted due to this fatal flaw. I've heard that some people always reinforce landing gear before flight but I've had many other models that did not require this and I consider it the realm of re-design.

reinforcing the landing gear area seems to be necessary for many models: I did it with Samson ( otherwise fantastic plane ), as well for example with Extremeflight`s 58`Extra300, E-flight Taylorcraft and some other planes. With the exception of Samson i ripped out the landing gear plates after the first few (not sooo bad ) landings. To prevent this i did it BEFORE braking Samsons gear. Now I do it with all my new Models, doing it before starting to build makes things easier.
Yes, manufacturers should take more care of those areas, it would cost nothing than a little bit of weight.

OK, I went ahead and took some pics. The damage looks a lot like some of the other LG failures we've seen. One thing that might help is if the Landing gear plate itself had been one piece instead of two separate sides. It appears to me anyway that the inner edge of the LG puts a lot of stress on a plate already weakened by lightening holes. Still considering how I want to repair it.

With my Hyperion planes (Yak 55 25e & Chippy 70e), before flying, I reinforce the gear area with epoxy, wood, CF tape etc...whatever I can get in there. I then go with softer wheels. Specifically Dave Brown Lite Flight wheels that are a tad larger in diameter and much softer which help to ease the trauma of landing. I fly off of a rolled grass field and so far this has worked for me. From my limited experience, the wheels Hyperion supplies are on the hard side which may contribute to the stress on the landing gear. Hope this helps.

I'm going to mull over removing some balsa from the gear area on the bottom of the fuselage (where it won't be seen) over the landing gear bolts. Then add some re-enforcement to the L/G plate from the bottom of the aircraft to strengthen the area around the lightening holes. I don't see a better way to be able to get to the problem area. Might be able to put a piece of red Monokote back over the area that I remove to hide my surgery when I'm finished if needed. This is just to nice of an airframe to let a little problem like this get in the way. I know that future releases are going to correct this but...... Any other suggestions?

Just got back from the LHS. A couple of ideas emerged. Evidently split LG like this as in not one single piece of bar stock tend to tear out easier than one piece. One guy said to strap the two gear legs together with a strip of aluminum bar stock and I am going to try that. I'm also going to heavily gusset and reinforce the area with NON-litened ply. Of course in your case doing this means cutting out the balsa belly skin. That should be easy to repair and well worth it IMO. I picked up some stainless steel 4mm bolts and blind nuts at the hardware store. 4mm was the smallest they had, the big benefit of the new blind nuts is that they have almost twice the face area that pulls up to the wood and that should help a lot to spread out the loads.

mmMMM, one piece landing gear sounds like a very good idea. Never thought of that. Not something you can do in this kit from the start but once the skin is pulled back due to some damage you could do that and the reskin over it.

Nice one

Quote:

Originally Posted by W.W. Corrigan

Knotnuts,

Just got back from the LHS. A couple of ideas emerged. Evidently split LG like this as in not one single piece of bar stock tend to tear out easier than one piece. One guy said to strap the two gear legs together with a strip of aluminum bar stock and I am going to try that. I'm also going to heavily gusset and reinforce the area with NON-litened ply. Of course in your case doing this means cutting out the balsa belly skin. That should be easy to repair and well worth it IMO. I picked up some stainless steel 4mm bolts and blind nuts at the hardware store. 4mm was the smallest they had, the big benefit of the new blind nuts is that they have almost twice the face area that pulls up to the wood and that should help a lot to spread out the loads.

I have been thinking of making a strap to tie the legs together. I think that with the gear legs off you can slide a metal ruler in to get a measurement between the gear bolts and then get a measurement for the width of the bolts. I am thinking of using a piece of good Aluminum or Steel ( since it sounds like the plane can use a little weight up front) the same width and maybe a little thicker and paint it black. I haven't really looked yet buy also thinking of removing the Blind Nuts and adding another layer of REAL PLYWOOD under the gear mounting plate to help make everything stronger. This seems to be the weak area on most ARF's and it is such an easy fix for the manufacturer during beginning assembly, also why the like using LITE PLY instead of REAL PLYWOOD in such a critical area is very confusing since the cost would be very minor. When I finish I will post some pictures of the rework.

Sorry about your mishap Steve. The plane looked and flew fantastic. It's a shame Hyperion put so little thought into the gear strength. Then to add insult
to injury the gear fairings punched out the leading edges. On mine I will make the gear fairings out of foam so we don't get a repeat performance!